It was once said, “the best ideas are formed when something is missing in life.” For us, it was the lack of an easily accessible, judgment-free community space in the local area to focus on work and let creativity flow that led to the creation of GoWork. We made GoWork for like-minded independent business owners, remote workers, young professionals, and students looking to be part of a community that can otherwise be hard to find without co-workers or working on your own.

As we started planning out the space on 9 S. Washington in Ypsilanti, we went down many paths to build our business plan. We debated whether to go big, take out loans, and recreate famous Silicon Valley startup offices or create an organic space that will grow alongside its members. We took the latter route and chose to bootstrap the entire venture and be creative with technology to keep member costs very low.

We kept our principles simple: make an equally beautiful and functional space that elevates the collective by fostering community. Above all, we want every entrepreneur, creator, designer, lawyer, artist, scientist, builder, and doer to feel like GoWork is their work home and the GoWork community is their work family. We believe that connecting with others to form something greater than than the sum of the parts is the key to both success and happiness in life and we hope that GoWork can bring you one step closer towards those.

In the changing economy and job market, employees travel further to make less. The increase in travel is costing the individual time and money and creating more traffic burden for the community at large. More employers and employees see value in remote working. More individuals are becoming business owners and more young professionals exist that need office space, whether for focused work time or for meeting with clients. Oftentimes the answer might be to work from home, but working from home can be isolating. At home, there rarely is the novelty of a new connection, the frivolity of water cooler talk, or the release of happy hour with friends after work. GoWork seeks to provide a space for all of the best things about office life to unfold free of any of the drama beholden to a workplace office dynamic.

We (Clayton, Andy, and Kyle) come from diverse backgrounds: engineering, finance, startups and data science. We are using what we’ve learned both at work and in travel to customize GoWork to be exactly the place we want to work at - and, for that, you will likely meet us as we work at GoWork. We hope that you like it as much as we do!